The Oppenheimer Case: An Exchange | Gregg Herken
To the Editors: Daniel Kevles has written a fair and balanced review of my book, Brotherhood of the Bomb [NYR, December 4, 2003]. He correctly notes that my conclusion that Robert Oppenheimer was a member of a closed unit of the Communist Party’s professional section in the Bay Area, from 1938 to 1942, rests in part upon the evidence that Oppenheimer had a major role in writing, in 1940, the two Reports to Our Colleagues which are signed simply, “College Faculties Committee, Communist Party of California.” Haakon Chevalier—who had once been Oppenheimer’s friend, and was also a member of that closed unit—claimed that not only was Oppenheimer the principal author of the Reports, but that he paid for their printing and distribution. Professor Kevles’s review asserts that my book “offers only circumstantial contemporary evidence of Oppenheimer’s participation in either [Report],” and concludes that “the degree of Oppenheimer’s involvement with communism remains murky.” In fact, there were three reasons why I concluded, while researching my book, that Oppenheimer had a significant role in writing both Reports, …
